Vivian A. Brown (right) and twin sister Marian B. Brown were an entertainment fixture of the San Francisco social scene.

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

Vivian A. Brown (right) and twin sister Marian B. Brown were an...

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Marian B. Brown sits in the twins' usual window spot at Uncle Vito's pizza on Nob Hill. After her sister became ill, supporters pitched in to buy Marian her daily pizza.

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

Marian B. Brown sits in the twins' usual window spot at Uncle...

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The Brown twins.

Photo: Chronicle Archives

The Brown twins.

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Parked in their usual window seat at Uncle Vito's pizza shop on Nob Hill, San Francisco's famous twins, Marion and Vivian Brown welcome adoring fans at their dinner table.

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

Parked in their usual window seat at Uncle Vito's pizza shop on Nob...

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After her sister Vivian passed away earlier this week, San Francisco twin Marian Brown sits in their usual window spot at Uncle Vito's pizza on Jan. 11, 2013 in San Francisco, Calif. "I can't believe she's gone. Its the saddest day of my life," said Marian Brown about her sister. Vivian was 85.

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

After her sister Vivian passed away earlier this week, San...

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After her sister Vivian passed away earlier this week, San Francisco twin Marian Brown heads home alone after eating at Uncle Vito's pizza on Jan. 11, 2013 in San Francisco, Calif. "I can't believe she's gone. Its the saddest day of my life," said Marian Brown about her sister. Vivian was 85.

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

After her sister Vivian passed away earlier this week, San...

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After her sister Vivian passed away earlier this week, San Francisco twin Marian Brown breaks the news to some of the staff at Uncle Vito's pizza on Jan. 11, 2013 in San Francisco, Calif. "I can't believe she's gone. Its the saddest day of my life," said Marian Brown about her sister. Vivian was 85.

Ms. Brown passed away peacefully in her sleep late Wednesday night at an assisted living center. She was 85 and had been suffering from dementia since last year.

"My heart is aching for her. We were always so close," said her sister, Marian B. Brown, who bravely tottered down Nob Hill on Friday afternoon for her daily dinner of a pizza (small combination) with a glass of wine and a slice of cake, at Uncle Vito's. After ordering, she sat in her usual window spot, leaving her sister's seat vacant.

"I wish she was here," she said. "My heart is broken."

For more than 40 years, the Brown twins were an entertainment fixture of the San Francisco social scene, beloved for their 100 matching outfits, identical hairdos and uniformly cheery disposition. They made cameos in films, were on TV talk shows, made commercials, appeared at important civic events, and made themselves into celebrities based upon their twin-ness.

"They were part of the fabric of San Francisco," said Jo Schuman Silver, producer of "Beach Blanket Babylon." The campy city-centric revue never featured the twins, probably because no two actresses could pull it off. But the Browns were part of the show whenever they came, which was often in the accompaniment of the late Cyril Magnin. "When they would walk in, the audience would rise and give them a standing ovation," Silver said. "They were lovely."

'San Francisco to the core'

Mayor Ed Lee issued a statement of sympathy, and haberdasher Wilkes Bashford recalled how he liked to stand off to the side and observe the twins as they worked their magic. "There are certain things that are San Francisco to the core," Bashford said.

Tom Sweeney, the Beefeater doorman at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel, noted that the twins were the only living attractions photographed as frequently as he is. And their hours were similar.

"Their day began when most people their age were going to bed," Sweeney said.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen was another fan of "the oft-photographed-by-tourists Brown twins," whom he described as "petite and demure." In a mid-'90s three-dotter, Caen wrote, "The Brown Twins, Vivian and Marian, celebrated their 70th last wk. at Planet Hollywood, where they were waited on by identical 22-yr-old twins, Valen and Tyree West. Much merriment ensued. Take my word for it ..."

At 5 feet 1 and weighing 98 pounds each, the twins never broke character until Vivian became forgetful. After a slip and fall last summer, Vivian ended up in Davies hospital and continued to deteriorate.

Gals in Kalamazoo

Ms. Brown was born Jan. 25, 1927, in Michigan. If you asked where, she and Marian would break into the Glenn Miller song "I Got a Gal in Kalamazoo."

They claimed to have been co-valedictorians at Mattawan High School and to have graduated from Western Michigan University with B-plus averages. They also claim to have simultaneously driven twin white Oldsmobiles out of a dealership.

They taught school for three years before coming west in 1970, when Marian worked at a bank and Vivian worked at an insurance agency. But they were never happy apart, so they created a job were they could be together, and that job was being the Brown twins.

Asked last summer to list their TV appearances, Marian was able to rattle them off by memory:

"We've been on Reebok, IBM, Payless Drug Store, Virgin Atlantic Airlines, Joe Boxer shorts, AT&T, Dell Computer, Apple Computer," she said before stopping to take a breath. "We've been on 'The Richard Simmons Show,' the Tom Snyder show, the Vicki Lawrence show, the a.m. show, the p.m. show." Virgin Atlantic founder Richard Branson "flew us to London for Virgin Atlantic and took us on a shopping trip to Harrods."

Wherever they went, the twins always played up their mirror image. "We tried dressing differently for six months," Marian said in an interview last summer. "We didn't like that at all."

They walked in lockstep and ate at the same speed, even lifting their forks in unison.

In a 1979 interview with The Chronicle's Ruthe Stein, Vivian described the trauma of attempting a vacation apart.

"I was flying to the Grand Bahamas," she said, "and when I got on the plane I experienced a horrifying feeling. I thought I was going to have a stroke."

Those twin brothers

Unsurprisingly, neither ever married, though they once found common ground by double-dating twin brothers Del and Don, whom they met at a twin convention in Milwaukee. Though a full foot taller, the men made for good dance partners, and it was going smoothly until the Brown twins made a unilateral decision to swap Del for Don. But Del and Don wouldn't go along, and that was the end of it, according to the confidential report the twins gave to Chronicle reporter Sylvia Rubin.

Eventually the commercial appeal of the twins faded. Hard times got harder when Vivian had her fall. After a story ran in The Chronicle last summer, the twins' loving public rose up with offers to help. Readers offered to buy Marian her daily pizza for a year. Others offered to drive her to visit her sister in the hospital, to save her the cab fare. At least two readers pledged to start online fundraisers so the twins could be reunited in an assisted care center.

Marian continues to live in the one-bedroom apartment, with twin beds, the sisters shared on lower Nob Hill.

Final visit

As was her custom, Marian took a cab Wednesday to the Rhoda Goldman Plaza assisted living center in the Western Addition for a three-hour visit with her sister. On her way out, she notified the nurse that Vivian did not seem to be herself.

When Marian prepared for her Thursday visit, she was called and told that Vivian's "not there anymore." On Thursday night, Marian went to the Sir Francis Drake Hotel to toast her sister with a Champagne cocktail, with a friend.

"Here's to Vivian," was the toast as their glasses clinked.

The twins had no other siblings. Funeral services are to be announced Monday.